Commentary, Home Page Featured
43-101 Fail: 10 Million Ounces of Gold or BS in Cow Mountain?
July 12, 2012 by prospectingjournal · Leave a Comment
COMMENTARY—ProspectingJournal.com—People really need to watch what they write, especially when a couple calculations show that you have one of the largest gold deposits in the world.
True, I was secretly hoping that Barkerville Gold’s (BGM: TSX.V) recent NI 43-101 was the real and pure truth. After all, having been forced to go on countless excursions to the gold-mining ghost-town of the same name as a social studies student, I remember looking at the abandoned buildings with awe. I wished the gold rush was still on! . . . But as we all know, childish fantasies are just that—fantasies.
Shortly after releasing its 43-101 on Cow Mountain, which indicated a resource of 69 million tons of 5.28 Au g/t and 10.6 million ounces of contained gold, things got rather sticky for BGM. As a result of analysts’ immediate concerns of the methodology behind the monstrous gold estimate, serious doubts now weigh on the stock, which has fallen from Friday’s high of $1.05 to $0.69.
Enter the British Columbia Securities Commission (BCSC), that pesky agency who breaks the backs of sloppy juniors. The BCSC was quick to send a letter to BGM requesting the company to provide additional information to support the indicated resource estimate from the original news release. In the letter, the BCSC listed myriad things that BGM shouldn’t have done in preparing the estimate. And, as a result, BGM now has to complete an audit of the resource estimate with a SEDAR technical report to back up its Cow Mountain claims in the next 45 days.
So BGM likely made “a mistake”—these things happen. For those that followed BGM, we were all well-aware that the chief promoter, Frank Callaghan, is known for bold statements anyways. What I find most amusing/depressing however is that, in its recent press release, BGM states “Until this ongoing technical disclosure review by the BCSC is resolved, the Company cautions investors not to rely on either the indicated resource estimate or the ‘geological potential’ disclosed in the Original News Release.”
Right, so don’t trust anything you say. For shareholders out there, is that a pile of crap you are holding onto, or a jewelry box? In the mining world, they both look the same.
–
Chris Devauld
ProspectingJournal.com
